ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 30, 1996 TAG: 9604300027
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: S.D. HARRINGTON STAFF WRITER
JEFF AND POLLY JONES had always dreamed of hitting the high seas.
When they married 28 years ago, the Salem couple even talked about sailing around the world.
After years of thinking and planning, they settled on a trawler trip to Florida, where they would eventually make their new home.
But at some point during the nine-month, 6,200-mile journey, the Joneses decided the Roanoke Valley was just too good to leave. Instead of changing their address to Jacksonville, they flew back to Salem.
Jeff Jones, 50, a urologist and associate medical director at Lewis-Gale Clinic, had grown up around boats in Jacksonville. His family owned a sailboat, and he began learning to sail it at when he was 5. Jones also spent some time in the Navy, which added to his love for ships and the sea.
He and Polly bought a sailboat of their own soon after they married.
But the kind of boating they wanted to do for this trip was new to both of them. The couple took boating courses to prepare - learning navigation and how to run a trawler, which traditionally is used for fishing. Many people use trawlers for longer trips, Jeff Jones said, rather than for a casual sail around the lake.
The single-engine diesel trawler they purchased averaged about 6 or 7 knots - or 7 mph.
"It goes slowly, and it doesn't burn much fuel," Jeff Jones said.
They named their boat the "Toucan" and printed it on the stern and on hats and T-shirts.
"Two can do or die," Jeff Jones explained.
They sold their house and Jeff took a leave of absence from Lewis-Gale - just in case they changed their minds about their final destination.
They left via the Chesapeake Bay in June - along with Polly's brother, who accompanied them for the first month. They chugged up to New York, up the Hudson River and through the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes. Then they journeyed down the Illinois, Tennessee and Tombigbee rivers. After cruising across the Gulf of Mexico and going through the Okeechobee waterway, they hit the Florida Keys and the Bahamas before ending the journey in Fort Myers, Fla.
Along the way, they cruised past big cities like Chicago and Montreal.
Other times they were in the most desolate, yet beautiful areas, they said.
"The fun things are really on land," Jeff Jones said. "The water is sort of a highway to get there."
The couple's two daughters, Amanda and Erin, visited for short stints along the way.
"Everyone wanted to come when we were in the Bahamas," said Polly Jones, who also is 50. Some of their friends joined them there.
At night they would set anchor or camp out in a marina.
"A lot of times we would sit up on the deck and watch the sunsets - maybe drink a glass of wine," Jeff Jones said. "We would get up with the sun and go to bed with the sun."
They usually had dinner on the boat.
"Dinner-time talk was a little different" at sea, Polly Jones said. They didn't need to tell each other how their day went, for instance; they both were there.
"I think it helped us, as far as husband and wife," Jeff Jones said. "We had to learn to work together."
And after nine months doing just that, they say smiling, they can still talk to each other.
In addition to taking in some of the country's most beautiful vistas, the couple learned to appreciate a lot of things: the weather, the friendship of others, and the family and friends they left behind.
Along a stretch of the Illinois River, they tried to set anchor near shore but hit a muddy embankment. The Toucan was stuck. About five minutes later, another boat came along and helped them out.
While on Lake Michigan near Chicago, gale-force winds made them dock in a North Chicago marina.
As they left Chicago and entered the Illinois River, they came across locks - canals that raise or lower boats from level to level - that were closed, delaying their journey. But in retrospect, had they been on schedule, they would have arrived in Pensacola approximately the day that Hurricane Opal hit. The couple heard about another boat that had been destroyed as it approached Pensacola from the Tombigbee River - the same route they were taking.
"You always get the feeling there's someone looking out for you," Jeff Jones said.
But what the couple learned to appreciate the most wasn't a part of their trip. It was what they left behind.
Their time at sea - 270 days - gave the couple plenty of time to rethink their plans to settle in Florida. Remembering the friends and family back in Salem confirmed the fact that they couldn't leave the Roanoke Valley.
"Our kids grew up in Salem," Polly said. "It really is a wonderful place."
So they came home.
Now, they're getting ready to move into a house they have just bought in the Karen Hills subdivision of Salem.
Jeff Jones is back at his medical practice at Lewis-Gale Clinic.
And the Toucan is still in Florida, docked with a company that charters boats. The Joneses still own the trawler - kind of like owning a condo at the beach, they say. And they plan to get a lot more use out of it.
But they doubt they'll ever match the adventure that took them from the Chesapeake Bay to Fort Myers - the long way.
"I think it was our once-in-a-lifetime trip," Jeff Jones said.
LENGTH: Long : 106 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff. 1. After a boat trip that took them toby CNBCanada, the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi, through Florida and
to the Bahamas, Jeff and Polly Jones came back ashore - and back to
Salem. 2. The Joneses' home afloat, the Toucan. color. Graphic: Map.
color.